0295 – Contrasts Within Contrasts

2021.10.22 – 0295 – Contrasts Within Contrasts

Let’s make it a bit more fun, because sometimes there’s more than one contrast, or contrasts within contrasts!

“Some dealerships give you a free vehicle wash with every service, we give an internal valet too … with every service and every winter tyre change.” Note the contrasts between “some dealerships” and “we” … “free vehicle wash” and “internal valet” … and “every service” and “every service and every winter tyre change”.

“The union leader says more talks should happen tonight, before Tuesday's strikes. But his deputy says the deal already offered should go to the vote first.” Here the balance is between:

· the union “leader” and the “deputy”

· “tonight” and “Tuesday”

· “more talks” and the “strikes”

· “more talks” and “the deal already offered”

· the “strikes” and a “vote”.

You’re on holiday with your friends and you all want to do something different tomorrow and have a long discussion after which you say: “So while Jack and James go to the museum, Harry, Harriet and Horace will go to the supermarket and buy sandwiches and drinks for today and soup and rolls for tomorrow, and Patsy and me will get up late because of the delay getting here yesterday, and then we’ll all meet up at either the Italian or the Sushi restaurant later … but did you say at 7 or 8?”.

Wow! Can you spot the contrasts interwoven with the new information? Here are a few of them:

· All the people’s names contrast with one another, and will be coloured: Jack, James, Harry, Harriet, Horace, Patsy and ‘me’ (which is a synonym for ‘Peter’ of course, but it’s new information).

· The locations are contrasting (remember, “while this is happening here, that is happening there”?): museum, supermarket, ‘here’, Italian, Sushi.

· The times contrast: today, tomorrow, yesterday, 7 and 8.

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and

projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career

spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER

BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts, travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of “Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper “Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows, ‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly 2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP (Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation, although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo